Blind Date
by Copycat
Summary: Harry and Nikki both get set up on a blind date.


TITLE: Blind Date

AUTHOR: Lizzy (Copycat)  
RATING: PG-13  
CLASSIFICATION: Nikki/Harry, Friendship, Romance, Fluff  
SPOILERS: Nothing too specific, but anything through series 13 is fair game.  
SUMMARY: Harry and Nikki both get set up on a blind date.  
DISCLAIMER: The BBC owns everything you recognise. And probably some things you don't.

For Mira, because I'm a fool, and for Alice, because it was her birthday until about an hour ago.

* * *

"I _really_ don't think she's going to appreciate this," Karen said from her seat on the sofa.

Liza turned briefly to give her a withering look and then turned back to the computer in front of her. "Say something about how work is really demanding," she told Suzy in an attempt to placate Karen.

"So demanding she can't even come to dinner with us anymore," Suzy said, shaking her head and typing away.

"Yes, well," said Karen, still not comfortable with what her friends were doing. "That's hardly a reason to do something like this."

Suzy deleted the last sentence she had written and turned around in her seat. "Oh, will you relax. It's only for a laugh. We're not actually going to send it."

Karen shrugged and leaned back in her seat, resigned, but then sighed when the baby monitor went off and she could hear her young son crying upstairs.

Liza looked at her, her hand on her own protruding belly. "Do you want me to go?" she asked, half-hopefully.

Karen shook her head, tired but unwilling to let someone else take over all the same. "No, I'll go. He's probably hungry."

Suzy rolled her eyes at them both and typed on. She knew she had been the same way when she had first had Emily, but now, five years and two more kids down the line, the novelty was wearing off. She had been looking forward to this evening away from her family for weeks.

She glanced briefly in the direction of the stairs as Karen's feet disappeared onto the upstairs landing and then quickly navigated the mouse, pressing "Send."

Liza gaped at the screen as it changed from the form they had been filling out to the, "Thank you for joining"-page. "You didn't," she said, awed.

Suzy laughed. "Oops."

Liza laughed with her. "She is going to be _sooooo_ mad."

Suzy shrugged indifferently. "As if she's ever going to know."

"Well, you could at least upload a better picture," Liza insisted.

Suzy pushed the keyboard towards her. "Then find one. But quick. I'll go make some coffee, I know where everything is."

* * *

"Look, all you have to do is show up, man, is that really too much for you?"

Harry sighed, looking across the desk at where Nikki was pretending to work instead of paying attention to his phone call and shifted his hand on the phone to block the sound of Mark's voice from her more completely. "I don't know," he replied.

"Yeah?" Mark asked, laughing. "Well, in that case I might just go myself, because this woman is fit, I'm telling you."

Harry laughed. "I'm sure your wife would be happy to hear that."

Nikki looked up curiously, all pretence gone, and Harry rolled his eyes at her, pointing at the phone in his hand. She laughed and shook her head at him.

"I'm looking at a picture right now, and I kind of don't care what Claire would think."

What Harry really wanted to ask was how it could ever have occurred to them to set him up on a blind date with a woman they had found on a dating website. Did they think he was that desperate? But he couldn't, because Nikki was right there, eavesdropping, and he definitely didn't want her to know anything about this. "I'll think about it," he agreed finally, mostly to get the conversation over with.

It was obvious from Mark's cheerful tone as he said goodbye that he took this to mean that Harry was relenting, but he didn't care. It would be easy to ring him in a few hours and say that something had come up at work.

That was the advantage to working such ridiculous hours, Harry supposed. No one would suspect you of lying if you said you had to suddenly work on a Thursday night.

Or, they might suspect, but they would never be able to prove anything, which was the important part.

"What was that all about?" Nikki asked him the minute he had hung up.

He had his excuse worked out already. "Just an old friend from University, wanting me to go out tonight." It wasn't a lie exactly.

"Giving his wife the slip?" she went on, amused.

He smirked. "You were paying attention," he teased.

"You're four feet away, I'd be very hard pressed _not_ to hear what you were saying," she argued. "If you want privacy, you should take your phone calls in the toilets."

He laughed. "Is that what you do?"

She smiled briefly and then turned her attention back to her computer screen. "Only the calls I don't want you to know about," she joked.

He nodded seriously. "Supporting your addiction to hair care products by moonlighting as a phone sex operator. I can understand why you'd want to keep that on the down-low."

She giggled, but shook her head at him to at least give the appearance of disapproving.

"So what are _you_ doing tonight?" he asked.

She froze for the briefest of seconds but then looked up, smiling brightly. "I'm going out to dinner."

"Hot date?" he joked, his insides churning.

"Very," she assured him and although she sounded like she was joking, too, he knew she really wasn't.

He waited ten minutes, and then he got up silently and went to the men's room to make a phone call.

* * *

Harry walked through the doors of the Italian style restaurant just a couple of minutes to seven. If there had been time before the head waiter, a bossy-looking man in his fifties with a not-too-believable Italian accent, pounced on him, he would have turned right around and left.

Instead he allowed himself to be guided helplessly through the small, dimly lit room that was positively oozing romance, wondering just what the hell Mark and Claire had been thinking when they booked a table here. For a first date. A _blind_ date. With some needy woman they had found on the Internet.

He gave a strained smile to the waiter as he held out the chair for him to sit down before hurrying off to yell at an unlucky young waiter, who had spilled water on an empty table across the room.

He was fiddling with his phone in his pocket, wondering if he should ring Mark straight away and tell him off, or it would be better to wait until he had actually seen the woman they were setting him up with, so he could air all his grievances in one conversation. Before he could make up his mind, however, a very familiar voice hissed from behind him, "What are _you_ doing here?"

He screwed his eyes shut, cursing the world and everyone in it and making a mental note to castrate Mark the next time he saw him, before turning around, smiling with as much sincerity as he could muster. "Hello, Nikki."

Her hair was down and her make-up was subtle; she was wearing the blue dress he remembered her once wearing to a charity function Leo had made them attend. She had explained to him then, between her fourth and fifth Cosmopolitan, that it was her favourite, because it made just the right statement: I've made an effort, but I'm not trying too hard.

Right now Harry really wished he had told her back then that that might be what the dress was saying, but that all any man would hear was, "Take me off," because it seemed like it was something she might want to know when she wore it on—dates. Especially when was apparently going to be stuck in the same restaurant.

"What are you _doing_ here?" she repeated, ignoring his greeting _and_ his staring, looking around the room self-consciously.

Oh, I'm here so I can watch you flirt with someone else, he thought sarcastically to himself. "I'm having dinner," he said out loud.

"And it just had to be here, did it?" she asked sceptically.

He shrugged, not really sure how to respond to that. He wasn't very keen on her knowing he had been set up, but on the other hand, having her think he had _chosen_ this restaurant wasn't very appealing either. Especially since her anger didn't appear to be rooted in jealousy at all.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How did you know?"

"Know what?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"That this is where _I_ was going."

"I promise you I didn't know that," he said emphatically and then something occurred to him. She didn't actually look angry so much as embarrassed. Whether it was at being caught _by_ him or being seen _with_ him, he couldn't tell, however.

Her shoulders sagged as anger was replaced by confusion. "So this is a coincidence? You're not here to mock me?" He didn't have time to be happy with this answer to his unasked question before a smile spread on her face. "You're on a date?"

He grimaced in reluctant agreement.

"But then why are you sitting at--"

She was interrupted by the head waiter, who had appeared next to her and was attempting to guide her towards the empty chair. "Signorina," he said in his strange, thick accent. "I am just coming to tell you that your date is arrived, but I see you find him yourself. Please sit." He held out the chair for her and she let herself drop into it, a dazed look on her face.

"Is this a joke?" Nikki asked the minute the waiter was gone.

Harry leaned back in his seat, hesitating, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. Nikki was his date. The woman Mark and Claire had found for him. On an Internet dating site.

He laughed suddenly and she glared at him. "What are you doing here, Harry?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" he returned.

Her eyes shifted to the salt and pepper shakers and then back to him, a defiant expression on her face. "Some friends set me up on a blind date," she said, her tone daring him to laugh. "Or at least that's what I thought."

"Other people set you up?" he asked, allowing a teasing grin to spread across his face. "So, you didn't join the world of on-line dating?"

Her hand froze halfway to the bread basket. "What?!"

He shrugged, struggling not to laugh at the appalled look on her face. "Mark told me they found you on some dating site on the Internet. They didn't tell me they'd found _you_, obviously, just... someone."

Nikki frowned, clearly thinking hard as she chewed carefully on the bite of bread she had finally managed to put in her mouth. "So..." she began hesitantly. "I was lied to, deceived into thinking I was going out with one of Suzy's husband's friends. You came here knowing you were going to meet some saddo off the Internet."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Nikki was by this time nearly bursting with laughter. "You know, I'd be mad at Suzy if that didn't make it absolutely worth it," she said, putting another piece of bread in her mouth.

"Really? So the fact that I'm here means you don't mind your friend putting your picture on the Internet and saying that you're a 'fun-loving girl, looking for a stable relationship with a career-minded professional'?" Harry asked, repeating the words Mark had read to him over the phone a few hours earlier.

Nikki's eyes widened. "She didn't," she said in an almost awed half-whisper.

He grinned. "What? Is it a direct quote from some girl-talk you two had?"

She glared scornfully at him and he guessed that he might just be right. "I'm _actually_ going to kill her. I don't care that she has a husband and two kids. I'm going to slice her up in the most painful way I can imagine."

Harry laughed. "Come on, it's not as bad as all that."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Are you joking? You could've been _anybody_. I just got lucky that it was you who showed up, not some creepy guy in his thirties who still lives with him mum."

He nodded. "You're right. You did get very lucky," he told her, his voice serious, his eyes teasing.

She laughed, her anger evaporating. "So what do we do?"

Harry picked up the menu in front of him. "We eat. I'm starving and Mark and Claire are paying."

Nikki picked up her own menu and read through the list of entrées. "They set you up _and_ they're paying for it. I'm not sure who's more pathetic, them or you."

He glanced at her over the top of the menu. "Probably the woman with the dating profile on the Internet."

She laughed and he held out a hand to stop the waiter walking past them. "Excuse me," he said, smiling at him. "Could we get the most expensive bottle of wine you have, please, and whatever food you think goes with that."

"Did you even look at the wine list?" Nikki asked when the confused waiter had left them, menus in hand.

Harry shook his head indifferently.

"I did," she informed him. "You've just ordered a £200 bottle of Chianti."

"I'll tell them you put out, they'll think it was worth it."

"They really think you're that desperate?"

He grinned. "I _am_ that desperate. What do you think I'm doing here?"

She laughed, shaking her head at him. "You say that like you're joking, but I just might choose to believe you," she warned.

He smiled to say that he didn't mind. And he didn't, really, because having her think he was here because he was just generally desperate was much better than having her _know_ that he was here because she had told him _she_ was going on a date.

Even if that date had somehow turned out to be with himself.

A thought occurred to him. "The waiter, he knew you."

"What?"

"He said he was coming to get you. So where were you?"

She pointed behind him to the small bar at the opposite end of the room. He turned around just in time to see the bartender winking at her in a way that made it obvious that he didn't speak 'dress', either.

"Just thought you'd hit on the staff, to have something to fall back on in case the date didn't turn out too well?"

She shook her head, smiling at him. "That guy's about 20."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe he likes older women," he teased.

"Lovely," she said sarcastically. "I was spying, actually."

"Spying?"

"Yes. Waiting to see what sort of guy I'd been set up with. You never know with blind dates."

"And if you didn't like the look of him, what were you going to do? Just leave?"

"Yes," she said, clearly thinking he was beyond stupid.

The waiter returned and poured a mouthful of wine into Harry's glass for him to test. He swirled it around the glass a couple of times, and then tasted it carefully. Across the table Nikki rolled her eyes at him and he grinned, nodding at the waiter, who poured wine into both their glasses and walked away.

"You realise how awful that is?" he asked her just as she was about to take a sip of her wine.

She looked at the glass uncertainly.

"Deciding some guy isn't up to your standards and just walking out." Harry had a vision of himself in a restaurant, being deemed unworthy of some stranger's time, and left to the pitying looks of the staff until he cottoned on and left by himself. "I'm never going on a blind date in my life, now."

Nikki smiled. "You were desperate enough to do it tonight, you might get that desperate again."

He agreed it was very likely he would be desperate again, but he wasn't going to tell _her_ that. "Not now that I know how women do this. Nooo." He waved a hand dismissively.

She laughed. "I don't think you really have anything to worry about," she assured him.

Part of him hoped she had read his mind and was replying to his thoughts. "What do you mean?"

"You're not the sort of guy women would stand up."

He grinned. "No?"

She grimaced non-committally. "They might run away screaming halfway through the meal, though."

He snorted, amused. "I can be charming when I want to."

"Just a shame you never want to," she mock-sighed, taking another sip of wine.

"You look really good in that dress," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "That's not charm, that's libido."

"Have any men ever run away screaming halfway through a date with you?"

She shook her head. "No. Because I look really good in this dress."

He laughed loudly. "Humility _is_ a very attractive feature."

"In _other_ people, you mean?"

"Oh, I'm sure it would be attractive in you as well, but I suppose we'll never know."

She giggled, shaking her head at him. "You were the one who told me I look good," she reminded him.

"I know," he told her sincerely, leaning back as the waiter placed two identical plates of food in front of them.

"Veal Parmigiana," the waiter explained. "It's very good with the Chianti."

Nikki smiled at him. "It looks great. Thanks."

As the waiter walked away Harry nodded approvingly. "More age-appropriate, definitely."

"That's a rather light green shirt you're wearing," Nikki said thoughtfully. "I wonder if tomato sauce will show on it?"

"If you throw food at me he'll think you don't like it and that'll be your chances for a date right out the window," Harry warned her, eyeing her fork suspiciously as she deftly rolled spaghetti, covered in bright red sauce, onto it.

"I think I'll get over that," she assured him before stuffing the spaghetti into her mouth.

Seconds later her expression changed from smug to ecstatic as she closed her eyes and licked her lips carefully. "There's no way I'm wasting any of this on you, though," she said, quickly preparing another mouthful.

For a while all he could do was watch her, completely fascinated, feeling a stab of irrational jealousy towards the chef who had cooked a meal that made her look like that.

"Are you not going to eat at all?" she interrupted his thoughts suddenly.

He smiled. "Do you know that scene from _When Harry Met Sally_, in the diner?"

Nikki nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing.

He indicated a nearby table with a discreet nod of his head. "I think that woman over there wants what you're having."

Nikki turned her head to find an elderly couple staring at her with thinly disguised interest and a blush crept up her cheeks as they quickly returned to their own meals.

Harry laughed. "I'm almost scared to try it," he told her.

She shook her head at him, amused, and quickly reached across the small table and dug her own fork into his food. He was about to protest when she lifted it to his mouth instead of stealing it as he had expected her to do.

"Open," she commanded and he obeyed.

He wiped his chin self-consciously as he felt sauce dripping down it when she pulled the fork back out and she grinned.

"It is _very_ good," he agreed when he had finally managed to swallow the large mouthful she had made him eat.

She nodded, too busy chewing to speak.

They ate in companionable silence, only pausing once to share a laugh when the unlucky waiter from earlier tripped and nearly spilled tiramisu in an elderly lady's lap.

Finally Nikki pushed her plate away and took a swig of her wine. "If I ate this much every day, I'd be fat," she said, looking at her empty plate with an expression of mixed adoration and disgust.

"Yes, you would," Harry agreed flatly.

She laughed loudly and he grinned.

A waiter came over and indicated their plates, silently asking if he could take them. Harry nodded, leaning back in his seat. "Would you like to see the dessert menu?" the waiter asked, as he stacked their plates in one hand.

Harry looked at Nikki, who stared back, blank-faced. "Yes, please," he said, glancing at the waiter and then back at Nikki, who smiled.

"You _want_ me to get fat, don't you?" she asked when the waiter was once again out of ear-shot.

He wondered idly if it would get her hit on less and smiled. "Yes," he told her seriously. "Because my favourite thing in the world is hearing you complain about how your size four skirt is getting a bit tight around the waist."

He was saved from any reply from Nikki by the waiter's reappearance and gratefully accepted the proffered menu.

"I'm not sure I'm ready to risk the tiramisu," Nikki joked, when she had read through the list of desserts.

"Chicken," Harry teased. "I'll risk it, hope he spills it on you instead of me."

She grinned, running her finger down the page. "What here is served really hot?" she mumbled to herself, loudly enough for him to hear.

When the waiter finally delivered their desserts, however, Nikki apparently regretted her lack of courage and seemed a lot more interested in Harry's tiramisu than her own cheesecake.

He grinned as she watched his spoon travel from the plate to his mouth and scooped up another mouthful, reaching across the table to offer it to her.

She smiled and grabbed his hand, making sure the creamy dessert ended up in her mouth instead of on her cheek.

"Regretting your choice?" Harry asked teasingly when she licked her lips.

She shook her head and picked up a bite of cheesecake, offering it to him. "Not really. This is good, too."

He ate it and then eyed their two plates carefully. "Share?" he suggested.

She grinned, nodding.

As they spoon-fed each other dessert across the table Harry couldn't help but think that this was the sort of thing couples did in really cheesy romantic films and he had never thought it was something he'd actually be doing. And enjoying himself at the same time.

But Nikki looking at him with her eyebrows raised sceptically when he tried to feed her too small bites, only to scoop as little cheesecake onto her own spoon as she could manage before offering it to him, made it funny rather than silly and awkward.

He felt a pang of regret at their friendly banter, however, when, near the end of the meal, a bit of tiramisu had escaped his spoon and somehow ended up on her cheek. Without thinking, he reached over and wiped it away with his thumb, and then had to force himself to let go of her as she looked him in the eye questioningly.

He imagined that she looked a little disappointed when he showed her the white cream and mascarpone mix on his thumb as he pulled away, but decided that it must just be wishful thinking when her gaze seemed to become even more intense when he licked it off.

As they drank their coffee, which somehow replaced their empty dessert plates on the table, he made sure to keep the conversation light, joking about work and Leo, making fun of the last in a line of aggravating DI's they had suffered through.

"You know what?" Nikki asked as they walked together to his car, hours later.

He looked at her, eyebrows raised in question.

"This was much better than an actual date. I actually had _fun_, instead of just sitting there making forced conversation."

He unlocked the doors and they both got in. "Oh, this was definitely a date. Two more meals and you're getting your kit off."

She laughed loudly, fastening her seatbelt. "It doesn't work that way, Harry."

He revved up the engine and pulled into traffic, heading in the direction of her flat. "No? How does it work, then?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "But there's no 'third date rule'."

"There is," he insisted. "I've seen it in a film once."

She giggled. "There isn't for me."

"Oh, so you have a _first_ date rule instead? Much better," he agreed, grinning.

She shook her head and turned to look out the window.

"I supposed being preferred over a blind date is something," Harry said, his fingers tapping the steering wheel as he stopped at a red light.

She turned her head to look at him, smiling. "Are you disappointed?"

The traffic light changed and he drove on. "That there's no third date rule? I'm gutted."

"No. That it was me there instead of a stranger."

He knew that was what she meant, of course, but deflecting with a joke saved him from accidentally saying 'no' much too emphatically. "Of course not," he said lightly.

She frowned, unconvinced.

"I had a good time, too," he assured her.

"Good," she said.

"Watching you get fat," he added under his breath and then let out a gasp of surprise when she hit him on the shoulder.

"You're not going to get fat," he said with a sigh and then added teasingly. "I'm sure you couldn't if you tried to. I bet all the other girls at college hated you because you just sat around eating cake all day and never put on a pound."

She laughed. "It's sweet that you're that naïve," she told him.

He grinned, making a left turn into her street and pulled up in front of the gate in front of her building. He killed the engine and turned to look at her, smiling.

"See, if this had been a date, you would've opened the door for me," she informed him.

He laughed and got out of the car, walking slowly to the other side of it while she watched him through the window, rolling her eyes. He opened the door with a flourish and she got out, laughing.

He slammed the car door and then turned to look at her. "So what would happen now, if this had actually been a date?" he asked pointedly.

She grinned. "That depends..."

"On what?"

"A lot of things. The guy, how the date went, that sort of thing."

He nodded seriously, pretending to think the matter over. "I'd say he was a great guy, and the date went _very_ well," he said at last, a teasing gleam in his eyes. "Does that mean he gets invited in for coffee?" He waved a hand towards the heavy iron gate.

She giggled. "No. That means he kisses me goodnight and promises to ring me. And then actually does it."

He wanted to lean in and kiss her. This would be the perfect excuse to do it, after all. He could just pretend it was part of their fake date game. But he didn't. Because he didn't want it to be part of a game. He wanted to kiss her for real, and have her kiss him back. "You're such a liar," he told her.

She frowned, waiting for him to explain.

"You would invite the guy in, and then you would take advantage of the poor sod. All night long."

She laughed loudly, and an old man walking past them with his dog smiled at Harry. "I sometimes think the inside of your head must be a _very_ disturbing place," she told him, still grinning.

He shrugged. "I think that all the time."

"And anyway," she went on off-handedly. "I _don't_ invite the nice guys in after the first date. Because _them_ I'd like to see again."

With that she leaned closer, stopping when her mouth was just a few inches from his. "Goodnight, Harry." Her breath was warm against his face.

He grinned and closed the distance between them, no longer caring if this was just a game when his lips finally met hers.

His hands went to the back of her head, holding it in place as his lips moved softly against hers, and he felt her body shifting closer to him, her arms wrapping around his waist. He decided to try his luck and ran his tongue slowly against her bottom lip.

He felt her smile for a few seconds before her mouth opened in silent invitation.

Much too soon he felt her pulling away, disentangling her arms first and then her tongue. He dropped one last quick kiss on her lips and then let go of her, pleased to see that she was as flushed and out of breath as he felt. He tucked a strand of now messy hair behind her ear and she smiled.

"Goodnight," she repeated, her body turning to walk towards the gate, her eyes still on him.

He screwed his eyes shut as if in pain. He wanted to object, coax her into letting him in and not letting go of this moment, but he wasn't blind to the significance of what she had told him just minutes before, about not asking men she wanted to see again in for coffee. "Goodnight," he replied at last, his voice raspy. "I'll ring you."

She grinned. "I'd like that."

When the gate had closed behind her and she had disappeared into the darkness of the courtyard, he walked around the car to the driver's side, trying to keep the spring out of his step.

As he put on his seatbelt he fished his mobile out of his pocket, pressing a few buttons, a smile on his face.

It rang four times before a woman's voice answered.

"I'm never going out on a blind date, ever again," Harry said with conviction.

Claire laughed guiltily. "Was it that terrible? I'm really sorry."

Harry smiled, running a finger along his lips, where he could still feel the ghost of Nikki's touch. "That's okay. When Mark gets his next bank statement, tell him we're even."

When Claire had hung up, undoubtedly to go question her husband about just what sort of deal he had made with Harry to get him to go on the date, Harry scrolled through his contacts to locate another number, to frown when he got an engaged tone.

* * *

Suzy turned over in bed when David returned from the living room. "So who was it that thought it was okay to ring at half eleven on a Thursday night?" she asked grumpily, in spite of the fact that _he_ had been the one to actually get out of bed and answer.

"It was your friend Nikki," David said and she felt a pang of guilt. "She said to tell you to delete her dating profile from the Internet immediately."

Oh, well, Suzy thought. She had always known the truth was likely to come out. But it didn't matter, she had got her revenge over Nikki for standing them all up last month, and she knew that Nikki would forgive her eventually.

David crawled under the duvet and turned out the lights. "Apparently she didn't need it anymore," he mumbled before drifting off to sleep again.

Suzy smiled in the darkness. Maybe she had been forgiven already.

* * *

Nikki hung up the phone and went to fish her mobile out of her purse. When she saw who the missed call was from, she smiled to herself as she checked her voice mail, the smile widening when she finally heard Harry's voice in her ear.

"This was _definitely_ a date. I'll see you at work tomorrow."

_End_


End file.
